


Time of the Season When Love Runs High

by BooSargent



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Amusement Park, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Amusement Parks, F/M, and they meet in the single rider line, so they're at a carnival/amusement park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16082702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooSargent/pseuds/BooSargent
Summary: Single Rider-Line at an amusement park AU, where Blue ends up on the water rapids ride with the rest of the Gangsey. Sort of a meet-cute between Gansey and Blue. Hope you like it!





	Time of the Season When Love Runs High

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the song time of the season bc its literally what's playing right now. i was gonna use the line "who's your daddy? is he rich like me" but that a) has nothing to do with anything, and b) is a LITTLE too on the nose. i love my son gansey. ok.

Honestly, theme parks weren’t Blue’s “thing”. The towering roller coasters creaking and breaking down constantly, standing in long lines for an hour in the sweltering Virginia heat, having to pay $10 for a small amount of food if you were hungry, mascots that stare at you with their lifeless, costumed eyes, and just lots of _loud noises_. 

No, _definitely_ not her favorite place. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go on her physic’s field trip to Wonder World. Her class had gotten a group discount, so tickets were reasonable enough, and the school had given her as much as they could so her family could afford it, and if she _didn’t_ go, she’d have to write a five page paper instead of just answering questions about the roller coasters she went on. 

So, Blue had gone.

It didn’t mean she was going to enjoy it, though. 

Being a school day, the park shouldn’t have been as full as it was. But not only was Mountain View High School at Wonder World today; oh no. The Aglionby bastards were on their physics school trip as well. A whole park flocked with raven boys, a parking lot piled with their expensive cars right next to the dumpy bus Blue’s class had hitched a ride with.

Of _course_ the park had both schools on the same day, that way there wasn’t two days with annoying high school students clogging up the park. But _God_ did Blue not want to have to look at their expensive shorts and stupid shoes and über-white smiles. She didn’t want to have to look at them at all.

Blue glanced up, finding herself at the beginning of the line for the water rapids ride. Maybe the small splashes of water that would hit her would cool her down. It was June; school was ending soon, and the physics trip was supposed to be like a last hurrah. But with June came June heat. The water ride would be the perfect antidote to this.

She glanced at where the line split: bigger parties one way, and single riders to the left. She stood at the fork before letting out a dejected sigh and going to her left. It was better that she wasn’t friends with anyone at her school; single-rider lines moved faster, so she’d get on more rides, and she wouldn’t have to make small talk.

She practically _walked_ on the ride; there was no one else in the single-rider line. But to her dismay, she was seated with a group of raven boys.

_You should have known,_ she thought. _It’d either be raven boys, or fellow mountain view students. Neither is a particularly good option._ Though they weren’t wearing their usual uniforms, their money rolled off of them in waves. These boys didn’t have a care in the world, it seemed. Or, perhaps they were just adept at hiding it.

The ride seated five; two were already sitting down, seated close: a tan, elegant one with dusty hair, and a pale, muscled guy that was all angles and cheekbones and _jaw_. The pale one leaned in and whispered something to the elegant one, who chuckled.

Rolling her eyes, Blue entered the raft, choosing to sit as far from those two as possible. But, since the ride was round, there’d be someone on either side of her anyway. 

“Is this thing safe?” she turned to ask the ride attendant.

“Safe as life,” someone replied. A raven boy, entering the craft behind her. “’Scuse me,” he said, slipping on the water that covered the raft’s floor. Reflexively, he reached his arm out and used her shoulder for balance. Blue jerked away, glowering up at the raven boy. The sun was directly behind his head, casting his face in shadow and framing his head in a sunlight-made halo.

“Oh no,” Blue snapped. “Touching is _strictly_ against my policy.”

Halo-head stepped back, taking a seat next to her in the mostly-occupied watercraft. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’m—I didn’t realize, I’m sorry.” He paused for a moment, crinkling his unfairly straight nose. He seemed to be reflecting light; the tan glow of his skin mixed with the obnoxiously bright yellow button-up shirt he donned worked as well as a mirror. “I’m Gansey,” he said, offering her his hand. Blue cast a disdainful glance at it, one eyebrow raised. Gansey seemed to remember her no-touching policy and hastily wiped his palm on his shorts. “Right. That’s Adam,” the elegant one, “Ronan,” the sharp one, “and Noah,” a newly smudgy raven boy. He was so pale he seemed to blend right into the white plastic seats of the ride.

As they all buckled their safety belts, the raft began to move up a thick conveyor belt. “You know, the ride’s only a few minutes long. You don’t need to introduce yourself.” She was in no mood to make friends with rich, snobby bastards. It was one of her rules. Blue looked away from the presidential boy and stared at the fake rocks that tried to serve as “ambience” for the rapids ride. They were about to crest the hill, where the raft would head down a not-so-steep course, with highly-chlorinated water splashing them at every turn.

She glanced back at the boys right as the raft began its descent. Adam’s head was ducked, cheeks ablaze with blood beneath a thick coating of freckles. Now that she looked again, she could see a small thread on the shoulder of his t-shirt, the faded appearance of his shorts, how they weren’t quite the right size for him. His sneakers were stained and worn, ready to fall apart any second. This raven boy wasn’t quite like the rest, and she felt a little bad that she’d been so harsh.

Just as she turned her head back to look at the view as they lumbered through the rapids, she caught Gansey looking at her curiously. Just as she was getting ready to bite out a sarcastic comment, a wave hit her. _Literally._ A huge bout of water, practically a wave, splashed over the side of the boat, absolutely soaking her, _and only her._

“ _Fuck,”_ she spat. Not only was her carefully-cultivated spiky hair now bloated with water, but her white cotton tank top was flush against her skin. The bra she had crocheted herself was clearly visible through the fabric, as was the exact shape of her stomach and curves. 

Gansey started. “I’ll, uh, I’ll take care of it.” He was very carefully shifting his eyes away from her chest, locking them intensely on her deep brown eyes.

She echoed, “Take care of it?”

Gansey looked unconcerned. “Yeah, I can get you like, a Wonder World t-shirt or something. Or—hang on—” Blue was still covering her chest with her arms as Gansey undid the safety belt holding him to his seat. Blue glanced around at the upcoming rapids, hoping the stupid bastard wasn’t about to be thrown overboard. Gansey was carefully removing his short sleeve button up, revealing a white undershirt beneath. He passed the glowing yellow shirt to Blue. 

“Gansey,” Ronan said, eyebrow pulled up, the arch sharp as a blade. Gansey just eyed him back.

Feeling a little breathless and reckless, Blue undid her seatbelt and slipped the button-up on, choosing to do up the middle two buttons but leaving the top and bottom one undone. It was huge on her—she was only five feet tall, and Gansey obviously did some sort of sport—but it covered what needed to be covered.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, watching as the ride crashed around another curve, and this time Ronan and his black muscle tee were drenched. Adam let out a snort, and Ronan elbowed him roughly. Adam elbowed him right back. Ronan turned and kicked some water up off the floor at Noah. It splattered against his pale legs and left drops on his shorts, and some made its way over to Blue’s legs. If she wasn’t already soaked she’d have gotten angry at these stupid raven boys who thought they could do anything they pleased. Instead, she glanced up to see Ronan’s mouth curled in a challenge. Twisting her own mouth into a sick smile of her own, she reached outside of the boat and swept her arm through the water, spraying everyone on the boat.

They kept at it for the remaining bit of the ride, kicking floor water at each other and pushing water from the rapids inside the boat. Blue actually laughed, and for a moment she felt like she was out with friends, not on a dumb class trip for a physics class she hated in a school she despised. It felt like something clicked. It felt like something was _starting_.

“Good thing you’re wearing boat shoes, Dick,” Ronan said, laughing as he watched water pool around Gansey’s feet.

Blue glanced at Gansey curiously. “Short for Richard,” he explained, brushing his thumb over his bottom lip. “I go exclusively by Gansey. And I never got your name,” he added.

“Blue,” she said. 

Gansey’s face twisted in a curious expression. “Is Blue a nickname?” Blue felt her eyebrows become as sharp as Ronan’s jaw. “Not that it’s not—cool, it’s just that it’s…unusual.”

“Fucking bizarre,” Ronan added, smirking and playing with the leather bands at his wrists.

“You’re right, pity I don’t have a normal name like _Gansey_ ,” she teased. 

Gansey smiled his golden boy smile. “You know, I’ve always liked the name Jane,” he pondered.

“What? Oh! No, no. You can’t just rename people whose names you don’t like.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” he said. “It’s just that I also like Jane.” 

“I won’t answer to that,” she said indignantly.

“You tell him, Aqua,” Ronan mocked, earning him another elbow from Adam and a slick smile from Noah. Blue scowled, but it was filled with sudden fondness for the boys.

They all exited the ride, and Blue actually found herself hesitant to leave. _What happened to Aglionby boys are bastards?_ She thought, but found herself playing with the hem of Gansey’s ugly shirt, admiring the way the water had pressed Gansey’s hair down to his forehead, watching in some weird lust-filled awe as he shook it out and then pushed it back, combing it through with his fingers.

“You can hang out with us for a little if you want, Blue,” Noah offered, quiet, lurking like a shadow by her shoulder.

Blue considered saying no. She really did. She could have just walked away and continued to enjoy her amusement park field trip in solitude. But instead, she found herself nodding. “I think I’d like that. We should tackle the haunted house next,” she suggested, jerking her chin and the black-painted house a little ways down the path. Turning to Gansey, she said, “I promise to hold you if you get scared.”

“Scared? Pfft,” Gansey said, brushing his thumb over his lower lip while the corner of his mouth pulled up. “I’ve encountered plenty scarier than a park employee with a mask jumping out at me.”

“Care to prove it?” she challenged.

“You’re on, Jane.”


End file.
